Kilmer Amendment to Stop Policy that Lowers Compensation for Defense Workers Included in House Defense Appropriations Bill
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, language drafted by Representative Derek Kilmer (D-WA), a member of the House Committee on Appropriations, was successfully added to the defense appropriations bill to stop a policy that lowers compensation for defense workers and members of the military. The 2017 Defense Appropriations bill funds critical national security needs, including military operations and readiness programs, as well as health and quality-of-life programs for our troops and military families.
The provision would eliminate a policy enacted by the Department of Defense (DoD) that passes the burden of finding affordable lodging while on assignment onto the individual employee rather than the department or service. This week, the House is also expected to pass the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 with similar language included.
Specifically, the amendment would prohibit reducing the rate of per diem for military members and civilian employees based on the duration of work or duty travel. DoD altered the per diem allowance for long-term temporary duty (TDY) workers by reducing per diem allowances 25 percent for TDY periods longer than 30 days and 45 percent for those lasting long than 180 days. Every year, more than a thousand workers from Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Naval Base Kitsap are deployed throughout the Pacific to assist in the readiness and maintenance of the Navy’s fleet.
“The Pentagon should not put the biggest burden of spending cuts on the backs of workers,” said Kilmer. “When workers and servicemembers are asked to be away from their homes and their families, it's not fair to ask them to take a financial hit too. It hurts morale and threatens our military readiness. This amendment gets us closer to lightening the load on these men and women working on behalf of our national security.”
In regular meetings with workers back home, Kilmer has heard about the impacts of the policy on retention and recruitment and has sought to reverse it. Last year he successfully added a proposal to stop the practice to the House National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016. In March of 2015, Kilmer also introduced bipartisan legislation on the issue.
In October of 2014, Kilmer led a letter with other members to DoD noting that in 2013 the General Services Administration (GSA) froze per diem rates and made it harder for federal workers on required travel to find lodging. The GSA’s Government-Wide Travel Advisory Committee also found that the prior lodging per diem calculation methodology was data-driven, accountable, and transparent.
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